Citing a need for additional space, city officials will relocate the Police Department into a city-owned storage building in the 1100 block of W. Main Street.

Currently, the department is downtown within City Hall at 215 S. Mill St.

“It will double their space, which is necessary for the safety of staff, witnesses and victims,” City Councilman Richard Guiley said. “They have less than 1,000 square feet presently. It will give them more than 2,000 square feet.”

The police will occupy the front of the storage building while city officials continue to use the rear to store park maintenance equipment.

“The space is incredibly inadequate, no question about it,” Police Chief Andrew Turowski said. “By virtue of the fact we don’t have appropriate space to detain prisoners, it does create safety issues. When it was built, I would guess it was perfectly adequate. But that was 50 years ago.”

Cost is projected at about $100,000 to $125,000 to renovate the storage facility to accommodate the police force.

The move should occur within 120 days, Guiley said.

This relocation to the storage building will suspend, at least for now, earlier plans to construct a new police station on a vacant site in the 300 block of E. Gorgas Street, site of the former middle school.

“We started on that path, but the cost just started escalating,” City Manager E. Thomas Ault said. “No one was comfortable with spending that much money. It was up over

$1.8 million. We look at what we are doing now as a temporary measure to buy three to five years for the Police Department.”

The city Fire Department will expand into the area the police are vacating. Firefighters also are in City Hall.

“Presently, the Fire Department has no offices,” Guiley said. “So the space the police will vacate will offer our fire and EMS (emergency medical service) to get out of the garage and away from diesel fumes.”